zaph comments on [Link] Contesting the “Nature” Of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's Studies Really Show - Less Wrong
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I would strongly disagree.
My interpretation of these experiments is that they make a lot of sense if you consider morality from a system-1 and system-2 perspective. If we actually sit down and think about, humans tend to have somewhat convergent answers to moral dilemmas which tend to the utilitarian (in this case, don't shock the man). That's a system-2 response.
However, in the heat of the moment, faced with a novel situation, we resort to fast, cheap system-1 heuristics for our moral intuitions. Some of those heuristics are 'what is everyone else doing?' 'what is the authority figure telling us to do' and 'what have I done in similar situations in the past?' Normally, these work pretty well. However, in certain corner cases, they produce behavior that system-2 would never condone: lynch mobs, authoritarian cruelty, and the unfortunate results of Milgram's experiments.
People didn't decide, rationally, that it was morally right to torture a man to death for the sake of an experiment they knew nothing about and were paid a few dollars to participate in, and this paper is silly to suggest otherwise. They did it because they were under stress, and the strongest influence in their head was the ancestral heuristic of 'keep your head down, do what you're told, they must know what they're doing.'
There are a number of other possible explanations for that detail. For example:
"The experiment requires that you continue" invokes the larger apparatus of Science. It gives the impression that something much larger than you is at foot, and that ALL of it is expecting you to shut up and do what you're told.
"You have no other choice, you must go on" - that rankles. Of course there's a choice. We pattern match it to a moral choice, and system 2 comes in and makes the right call.
The best lesson you can learn from these experiments, as depressing as they are, is that when you feel rushed, and there's life and death at stake, and you don't feel you have time to breathe, the best possible thing you can do is to stop, sit down on the floor, clear your head, and take a moment to really try to think about what you're doing.
I believe the article the OP points to is actually more about how system 2 is being engaged in these systems, and is therefore not "blind obedience", i.e. a simple heuristic being engaged. From the conclusion:
To put words into their mouth, I believe they are arguing that people's system 2's are overriding the "don't hurt people" heuristic of system 1, as opposed to system 2 analysis being overridden by a simple obedience heuristic.